Copper Quartz Media recently announced their latest film Okpik: Little Village in the Arctic will premiere on CBC Gem in Inuvialuktun on August 5th, 2022, and in English on CBC Manitoba on August 6th, 2022.
The documentary, directed by Tiffany Ayalik and Kylik Kisoun Taylor, follows Kisoun Taylor, his daughter Indigo and his crew in the creation of an off-grid community and farm that is rooted in Indigenous methods of hunting and foraging. Using local materials and traditional knowledge, Kisoun Taylor, an Inuit/Gwich’in hunter, will re-establish and re-imagine the lost practice of building a traditional Inuvialuit log cabin with a sod roof with the intention of creating housing security and an opportunity for language and cultural revitalization in his traditional territory of the Beaufort Delta. Implementing the Inuvialuktun language during the build, in all aspects of camp life, and in the film was an important component that rooted the village in decolonizing and re-Indigenizing practices.
“When the borders to the Northwest Territories closed during the pandemic, we had to shift focus as a family and as people, it made us look back and see how the land had provided for our people in the past and made the need for affordable and sustainable housing and food sovereignty in the Arctic even clearer. There is deep intergenerational trauma in the High Arctic as a continued legacy of residential schools, forced relocation, cultural genocide, loss of language, culture, and racism. Through the building of the culture village, we were able to find pride and autonomy by living powerfully on the land in a way that has existed for millennia,” says director Kisoun Taylor.
For the making of Okpik: Little Village in the Arctic, producer Caroline Cox spent many weeks living in a tent at the Okpik Village often working as the sole crew member on-site, in order to capture important moments as the story evolved. As the producers of the film, Cox and Ayalik welcomed the opportunity to work with new and emerging Indigenous talent, including Nolen Rainville as location sound mixer, and Benjamin McGregor as Digital Media Intern and camera operator on the final block of shooting in March 2022. Okpik: Little Village in the Arctic was filmed entirely at Okpik Village, 16 km north of Inuvik, features both Inuvialuktun and English, and will be premiering in both languages. Director and producer Tiffany Ayalik was also the lead sound engineer for the Inuvialuktun voiceover sessions.
“In the Inuvialuit Settlement Region, the Inuvialuktun languages are considered endangered. Fewer than 20% of the population speaks Inuvialuktun, the majority of whom are elders. It was vital to use the project not only to tell the important story of the village but to use it as a vehicle to create language resources for the community. We were incredibly fortunate to have several elders both in front of and behind the camera working with the team to make sure important cultural and linguistic elements were accurately portrayed. Creating a 100% Inuvialuktun version of the film to be broadcast on a national streaming platform is the first of its kind and the team is honored to be able to help make this important intervention into the Canadian media landscape,” says Ayalik, director and producer of the film.
From Copper Quartz Media; the team behind the award-winning film Food For the Rest of Us, Okpik: Little Village in the Arctic was made possible with the support of Canadian Media Fund, Rogers Documentary, NWT Film, Absolutely Canadian on CBC.
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